Donald Trump vowed at a rally Tuesday that if reelected, he’ll reduce funding to each college with a vaccine mandate ― although all 50 states have such legal guidelines on the books.
“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate,” he declared at his rally in Racine, Wisconsin. The group went wild.
It’s a promise he’s made a number of instances in latest months, repeating the identical line verbatim at rallies in March and Might.
If he adopted by on that, no college in america would obtain federal funding. All 50 states and Washington, D.C., have legal guidelines requiring particular vaccines for college kids, together with measles, rubella, chickenpox, tetanus, pertussis and polio. Exemptions to the rule differ by state, with California, New York and a handful of different states sustaining the strictest mandates.
Public well being consultants credit score these vaccine necessities with eradicating illnesses that after killed hundreds of individuals a yr. Polio, a illness that contaminated, paralyzed or killed practically 60,000 American kids in 1952 alone, has been fully worn out within the U.S. because of mass vaccination packages.
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Trump’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to questions on which vaccines he was referring to. Months earlier, his spokespeople stated he was solely referring to varsities’ COVID-19 vaccine mandates. However he’s declined to make that distinction throughout his speeches, together with at Tuesday’s rally ― a choice that panders to his celebration’s anti-vaccine crowd.
A rising faction of conservatives have begun questioning the security of vaccines in recent times, regardless of the extraordinary scientific scrutiny they bear earlier than the general public receives them, and a dearth of proof that they’ve any lasting opposed side-effects. A Politico/Morning Seek the advice of ballot discovered final yr that whereas vaccine skepticism was about equal amongst each Democrats and Republicans earlier than 2020, greater than half of Republicans now say they care extra in regards to the potential well being dangers of vaccines than the advantages.
Although he as soon as took credit score for the event of COVID-19 vaccines, Trump has since scaled again his endorsement of them and vaccines generally. Final month, he even attacked unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the vital distinguished voices within the anti-vaccine motion, as not being anti-vaccine sufficient.
“Republicans, get it out of your mind that you’re going to vote for this guy because he’s conservative. He’s not. And by the way, he said the other night that vaccines are fine,” Trump stated in a video posted to social media. “He said it on a show, a television show, that vaccines are fine. He’s all for them. And that’s what he said. And for those of you that want to vote because you think he’s an anti-vaxxer, he’s not really an anti-vaxxer.”
